This is not a shrinking, innocent heart, even to itself unknown such as, I doubt not, beats in the bosom of the English girl to whom my father destined me." Lucy Edgarmond was the daughter of his parent's best friend; but too young, when he left England, for him to marry her, or even foresee what she might one day become.[1] CHAPTER II. Oswald and Corinne went first to the Pantheon, now called Santa Maria of the Rotunda. Throughout Italy the Catholic hath been the Pagan's heir; but this is the only antique temple in Rome which has been preserved entire; the only one wherein we may behold, unimpaired, the architecture of the ancients, and the peculiar character of their worship. Here they paused to admire the portico and its supporting columns. Corinne bade Oswald to observe that this building was constructed in such a manner as made it appear much larger than it was. "St. Peter's," she said, "produces an opposite effect: you will, at first, think it less vast than it is in reality. The deception, so favorable to the Pantheon, proceeds, it is conceived, from the great space between the pillars, and from the air playing so freely within; but still more from the absence of ornament, with which St. Peter's is overcharged. Even thus did antique poetry design but the massive features of a theme, leaving the reader's fancy to supply the detail: in all affairs we moderns say and do too much. This fane was consecrated by Agrippa, the favourite of Augustus, to his friend, or rather, his master, who, however, had the humility to refuse this dedication; and Agrippa was reduced to the necessity of devoting it to all the gods of Olympus, and of substituting their power for that of one earthly idol. On the top of the Pantheon stood a car, in which were placed the statues of Augustus and Agrippa. On each side of the portico similar effigies were displayed, in other attitudes; and over the front of the temple is still legible: "Consecrated by Agrippa." Augustus gave his name to the age in which he lived, by rendering it an era in the progress of human intellect. From the _chefs-d'œuvres_ of his cotemporaries emanated the rays that formed a circling halo round his brow. He knew how to honor men of letters in his own day; and posterity, therefore, honors him. Let us enter the temple: it is said that the light which streams in from above was considered the emblem of a divinity superior to the highest divinities. The heathens ever loved symbolical images; our language, indeed, seems to accord better with religion, than with common parlance. The rain often falls on the marbles of this court, but the sunshine succeeds to efface it. What a serene, yet festal air is here! The Pagans deified life, as the Christians sanctify death; such is the distinction between the two faiths; but Catholicism here is far less gloomy than in the north, as you will observe when we visit St. Peter's. In the sanctuary of the Pantheon the busts of our